A unit plan is certainly a useful tool. It helps guide the teacher towards their overarching goals during a unit, and allows them to lay out the unit in a logical manner. This was evidenced when I began writing my own unit plan, for the Public Speaking unit that I will be teaching next spring. Originally, I had lots of ideas of activities and concepts that I wanted my students to learn. Creating the unit plan helped me organize and summarize my ideas in a more logical way.
My public speaking unit will focus on two main aspects; the FFA Creed and prepared public speeches. Students will have the opportunity to pull meaning from the Creed, while learning and memorizing each paragraph in class. They will then be expected to deliver the Creed in front of their peers. Students will also be expected to create a prepared public speech. They will gain practice researching, citing sources and paraphrasing information. They will then deliver this speech in front of their peers. While the content in this lesson is important, it is my hope that students gain more than a better understanding of the Creed and their research topics from this unit.
Ultimately, I wanted to craft a unit that went beyond the black and white information. I wanted to provide my students with the opportunity to improve their communication skills, gain confidence in themselves and overcome their fears. Through memorizing and delivering the FFA Creed and through researching, constructing and delivering a prepared public speech, my students will be able to gain skills which they will be able to use in their academic, professional and personal lives.
When I turned my unit plan into my peers for evaluation, they made some really helpful suggestions, along with comments about little things that I needed to tweak to make the unit plan better. One of my reviewers reminded me to cite three sources, instead of just one. After doing a little more research, I found two more sources which I added to the introduction/need portion of my unit plan. Another suggestion that my reviewers made was to create more concrete objectives, both for my unit and for each individual lesson. I tried hard to make sure that my objectives contained all three essential parts, ultimately altering almost all of my unit and lesson objectives on my final draft of my unit plan.
Furthermore, my reviewers suggested that I include more detail in my plan, whether that be in the materials needed, or in the rubric that will be used to assess my students. This forced me to think a little more deeply about what I wanted to do daily in my unit, but I was ultimately able to compose a list of materials that I think I will need. I also decided to utilize the National FFA rubrics for their Creed Speaking CDE and their Junior Prepared Public Speaking CDE to evaluate my students. I also added a column in my table for assignments, and laid out all of the assignments that I plan to give during the unit. Additionally, I created a breakdown of how much each assignment will be weighted in the assessments section of the unit plan.
Perhaps the biggest thing that I changed to improve my unit plan was the order of my lessons. I was originally having a difficult time creating a logical order for this unit. My reviewers did not mention the order, but it was something that I was unhappy with. However, I think that the order that I decided on for my final draft makes the most sense and allows adequate time for my students to learn and craft their speeches.
Overall, I think that I did a nice job with my unit plan. I included enough detail that it could be used by another teacher, it is easy to follow and it flows in a logical manner. I can certainly see how creating these unit plans can be extremely helpful in forming lessons that compliment one another and highlighting important information!
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